Synopsis
Dong is a dreamer who has lost his way. Born on the plains of Inner Mongolia, and transplanted to the economic frenzy of southern China, he is forced to confront the realities of age, family and a changing society. Over the course of a year, filmmaker Tao Gu accompanies Dong in his labyrinthine quest. The resulting portrait is of a difficult and divisive young man; a sympathetic record on the human condition in contemporary China; a raw cry for truth, a longing for a better life.
A word from Tënk
From a Surrealist perspective, society is doing everything it can to kill our need for freedom, our pleasure from seriously playing and our ability to dream. Happily, there are those who fight back.
Taming the Horse, a luminous film noir, tells the story of filmmaker Tao Gu’s visit with Dong, a childhood friend. Together, they embark on a journey to visit the village in Mongolia where his friend was born. Dong, for whom “love is the only thing worth living for,” has no stable employment; he likes rock music and photography.
It feels like Tao Gu made this film to save his friend’s life, and this muted suspense lingers throughout its duration. This intimate and uninhibited film gives us access to the back corridors of China, now a capitalist power par excellence. Dong’s father speaks about the labour market as if it were a battlefield, his mother can’t stop working despite a broken wrist, and his brother falls into the rank and file.
A blurry night, a bleak corner, moments of tenderness, and, at the break of dawn, in a gesture of immaculate insolence, a pair of false eyelashes left glued to a tree.
Carlos Ferrand
Filmmaker
